


Better or Worse (than Britney)

by Hllangel



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Copious amounts of alcohol - Freeform, Drunk Sex, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Wedding, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 18:24:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1479520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hllangel/pseuds/Hllangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course Harry couldn't have a stag do like a normal person. A London-centric pub crawl and club night complete with fancy dress wasn't enough for a no-longer-teen pop sensation with more money than anyone knew what to do with. Of course not. Instead, he'd flown everyone he'd ever known out to Las Vegas for a week of clubbing and drinking and debauchery.</p><p>Or, the one where Nick and Louis get married and divorced within 24 hours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better or Worse (than Britney)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [NGrim](http://ngrim.livejournal.com/) [Hiatus fic meme](http://ngrim.livejournal.com/18491.html). Prompt from [deltoras](http://deltoras.livejournal.com/): nick/louis, they get secretly drunken hitched and just as quickly divorced. press finds out & their marriage becomes a public joke a la kim k because nobody can wrap their heads around them ever having been serious about each other. this stings both of them. lots of on-air ribbing on the radio show.
> 
> It's not quite that, but there is a quickie wedding involved, so I hope you like it anyway. 
> 
> Britpicked by [Sunsetmog](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog). Any remaining mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Warning for slightly dubious consent based on sheer amounts of alcohol consumption. Both participants are willing, but they're also really really drunk.
> 
> This is a work of fiction based on the lives and likenesses of real people. If you are one of them and you're reading this, I'm so so sorry.

"Someone had a busy weekend," Matt says when Nick walks in the door, only seven minutes late for the pre-show meeting. He's waving his phone at Nick, and Nick's not entirely sure he wants to see the carnage. He's fairly sure he sent a lot of drunken texts, but he wasn't the only one of their party to have Matt's number. It's not entirely his fault that he's late; the plane back from Vegas had been delayed, and it hadn't even been the one he was originally supposed to be on anyway. 

"Hnnnngggg," Nick manages to say through a gulp of coffee. Oh god, he's going to have to be _coherent_ in twenty one minutes. "Tell me you've not written it into the script?" This comes across as more begging than he's used to, but he'll forgive himself. Jetlag and a hangover that's been put off for an entire week does that to a man. _Fuck Harry Styles and everything he fucking stands for_ , Nick thinks. Then he pulls out his phone and says as much to Harry, along with a string of thumbs down emojis, followed by another of smiling piles of poo.

Of course Harry couldn't have a stag do like a normal person. A London-centric pub crawl and club night complete with fancy dress wasn't enough for a no-longer-teen pop sensation with more money than anyone knew what to do with. Of course not. Instead, he'd flown everyone he'd ever known out to Las Vegas for a week of clubbing and drinking and debauchery. 

Harry himself had picked Nick up from the airport, larger than life sunglasses on his head as he waited in his topless white mercedes, shirt open, showing off all the tattoos, looking every inch his celebrity status. 

"Never thought I'd be here for _this_ ," Nick had said, hugging Harry tightly. "Harry Styles getting married!" 

Harry had thrown his head back and laughed, tossing Nick's suitcase into the backseat of his car. "Come on, Grimmy. You know most of the stuff in the papers is bollocks. And you like Daisy anyway." 

"That's why I can't believe it. She's too good for you, Styles." 

The car had swerved a bit as Harry reached over to punch Nick in the arm. "Eyes on the road!" 

They made it back to the Venetian and had left everything with the valet; Nick's bags could apparently be brought up later, because, "You're the last one here, Grim. Let's get this party started." 

Clearly, that had been an optimistic statement, because when they'd opened the door to Harry's incredibly lush suite, there were piles of drunken popstars and celebrities all over the place. Nick can pick out all four of Harry's lads already, a handful of actors he knows Harry hangs around with in Los Angeles, and a lot of people he vaguely recognizes from pictures Harry is constantly texting him.

"Grimmy's here!" Harry had shouted, and the room turned to look at them for half a second before going back to their drinks. A second later, Harry had pressed a shot into his hand; they clinked glasses, and that's the last non-fuzzy memory Nick really has. 

Just because there's a haze over the week doesn't mean Nick doesn't remember Harry saying somewhere on the third day that he shouldn't be the only one anticipating marital bliss before manhandling everyone not already married or seeing someone into pairs. Nick had been shoved clear across the room until he was standing next to Louis fucking Tomlinson, and Harry had draped his arm around Louis shoulders before pulling Louis' arm up to wrap around Nick's waist and snapped a picture. 

Louis had gripped him too tightly and _growled_ at Harry, who refused to do anything but smile beatifically right back as he took the photo. "You make a lovely couple," Harry had said. 

Nick's still not exactly sure how they all ended up at a wedding chapel a few days later, the most gaudy rhinestone encrusted veil Harry could find hanging off his head while he'd held Louis' hands and repeated after Elvis that he was taking Louis fucking Tomlinson to be his husband. He's also not sure why he's now got a small, curly _LT_ tattooed -- permanently etched into his skin -- on his left ring finger instead of an actual ring. Nick has got to stop going to parties where people have tattooing equipment. At least now he can claim that he has Zayn Malik original artwork on his body. He could chop off his finger and make a bloody fortune if Ebay didn't disallow that sort of thing. 

He remembers being shoved into one of the rooms in Harry's suite, not the one he'd been staying in, which probably means that it's Tomlinson's, and being told not to come out until the marriage was _official_. He remembers growling _fuck him_ into Louis's neck, sober enough for the moment to realize that this was a phenomenally stupid idea, and drunk enough to not actually care anymore because Louis might be a twat of a human, but he was really fucking fit, and however it had come about he was _his_ now. He remembers Louis pushing him up against the wall and snogging him until they were both hard, remembers dropping to his knees to finish Louis off with his mouth, and remembers Louis tipping him backwards onto the floor and using his hands to get Nick off before they'd both passed out without even moving to the bed. 

He also remembers waking up alone with his dick still hanging out of his jeans, Harry's wide green eyes floating above him and Harry's shocked voice saying, "Oh my god you actually did it." 

They'd called a lawyer pretty much right away, and turned up at his office just north of the Strip later that afternoon, the paperwork already in place. His signature on the annulment papers was much less sloppy than the signature on the marriage license. 

"Eighteen hours, thirty-six minutes," he said to Harry in the car on the way back. "Are we better or worse than Britney, do you think?"

Harry had just given him a sad sort of look, and gone back to watching the road. It had only been after they'd gotten back to the suite that Nick had looked at the time and realized he was supposed to be at the airport, but Harry had waved him off and called someone to book him on a flight back on Sunday morning instead, promising that he'd be back in time to do his show on Monday. 

Well, he's here, but he's only been home long enough to drop his suitcase and grab a fresh pair of pants, and now Matt Fincham is shoving photo evidence of his god forsaken _marriage_ to Louis Tomlinson in his face. "We're not talking about it," Nick says. It's an illusion that Nick has any sort of control over his team because that's _all they talk about_ when the mics aren't on. Small favors, he supposes. 

The ban on it lasts all of eight hours, when it's mid-afternoon in London, but Nevada is just waking up. Someone has gotten hold of the now-void marriage certificate, and can now buy a home with the money they've made selling it to People magazine. Nick's phone basically explodes, and he can barely keep up with dismissing notifications so that he can ring his publicist. At least she takes pity on him and agrees to meet at his house. 

Daisy comes over, too, and hugs him. "I'm sorry about my idiotic husband-to-be," she says. It's hard to take her seriously when she's giggling like that, though. 

"Any chance you'd go back in time and tell him _no_ so that I never go to a stag week in Las Vegas? Might do him some good. I don't think he's ever heard that word in his life." 

Daisy hugs him again. "Not a chance," she says. "He sneaks up on you and worms his way in. Can't let him go now." 

"Yeah," Nick agrees, because she's right. There's a reason Nick still considers Harry to be one of his best mates despite the fact that Harry pretty permanently lives in LA these days. And he's about to lose Daisy to the same soulless city. 

The meeting with Claire takes three times longer than it should, because she spends most of it on the phone with Louis' people, and Harry's, working out a strategy to spin it in a way that causes the least damage to all of them. It's very obviously a string of terrible decisions brought on by Harry's impending marital bliss and lots and lots of alcohol, but it would never do to actually talk about it that way. They also can't spin it into something along the lines of _secret friends decide to tie the knot for a laugh during a stag celebration,_ because no one would really buy that he and Louis are friends at this point; they're way past where they can salvage an actual friendship out of the wreckage of the terrible publicity surrounding the two of them. 

In the end they decide on a version that's more or less the truth, minus the drinking: it was a gag, staged for Harry's benefit, planned by the two of them during the first few days to take the piss out of Harry and his reputation for shagging around. (Not that they'll be using those words for the papers.) They'll say that the chapel had refused to cooperate unless there was an actual wedding, and it was easily annulled the next day. 

Aimee, Ian, Gillian, Henry, Collette, and Pixie arrive just as Claire's leaving, all of them carrying various bottles of things. He makes sure to text the official story to Matt, so he can deal with it on Showquizness in the morning, before turning off his phone and setting about getting properly sloshed. 

Because Finchy's brilliant sometimes, the answer to the question of, "Marriages more unlikely than Nick Grimshaw and Louis Tomlinson" turns out to be Harry Styles and Daisy Lowe.

~*~ 

Nick would be perfectly happy to avoid Louis Tomlinson until the end of time, except that Harry's actual wedding is actually happening in a few weeks. Daisy refuses to tell him how they decided, but he'll be standing with Harry, along with Gemma and the Lads, while she has all of Nick's best friends in her party. He'd much rather be on that side of the chapel, even if he was required to wear a dress for it. Standing with Harry means he has suit fittings and rehearsals to go to, and all of it involves Louis.

The thing is, that once upon a time Nick found him funny before he turned out to be a complete twat. And now, he has hazy memories of drunken sex that probably wasn't actually as good as he thought it was at the time. Nick doesn't really do shame or embarrassment, but the first time he sees Louis after Vegas he feels his face go a bit red and has to look away. It turns out that Liam and Niall are saints, and take it on themselves to chat to him while they all wait for Harry to turn up, conversation flowing easily about what they've been up to since going on hiatus, and since the party. Niall's especially interested in talking to Nick, because it turns out that he's talking to the bosses at Radio 1 about a specialty show. Finchy will actually die when he hears about _this_ , Nick thinks. And then decides not to text him, but to just get Niall to drop by the studio one day if he's there at the right time. Niall apparently thinks that this is an excellent idea, and they exchange numbers. 

He manages to not say more than two words to Louis right up until the day of the actual wedding, when Harry has what he's calling a panic attack, and Nick is calling _nerves_ , since he's not doing much more than sitting in his dressing room and refusing to get his hair done. Nick, a person paid for his ability to wake people up and entertain them, is unsurprisingly not very good at calming them down, so he sets Harry up in the groom's dressing room with Liam and goes to find Louis, on Liam's advice. 

"I need you, Tomlinson," he says once he finds Louis and Zayn mingling with the guests. "Harry's panicking." 

It's a reasonable enough request, but Louis' face is a stormcloud that grows darker as Nick gets closer. Nick's pretty sure he never did anything to merit this kind of hatred; the wedding had been all Harry's fault anyway. And all the stuff before, well that had mostly been people on Twitter and not either of them at all. (Well, there was that one, but it's Finchy's fault for not being able to stop laughing in the middle of a link.) 

"Go find Niall and Liam," he says, dragging Zayn with him. 

Niall is chatting easily with Gemma, and they both come with Nick when he tells them what's going on. And then Nick and Gemma watch while the five of them huddle together in the center of the room, singing and poking at each other. Nick watches as Harry unfolds a bit each time Louis pinches his side or tugs at his curls, and eventually he's back to himself. 

He doesn't get a chance to talk to Louis before the ceremony, but Nick does corner him at the reception between courses, while Harry and Daisy swing easily around the dance floor. 

"Thank you," He says to Louis. "I couldn't have calmed him like that." 

"He's my best friend," Louis says. "I'd do anything for him." 

_Even marry me,_ Nick thinks, not a little bit bitter. "How are you, by the way," is what he says to Louis. The memory of Louis' lips and hands hasn't faded into obscurity the way he'd hoped. Some dark corner of his mind wants to do it again, sober, but he knows that's not going to happen. Instead, maybe it's time to step up and attempt to be civil. It's been years, after all. 

"I'm doing alright," Louis says. His tone is light enough, and Nick supposes he's used to making small chat like this. "Had a few projects fall through recently, but I've got a few other things in the works." 

"For the record, I'm sorry about --" he waves his hand around and hopes Louis gets that he means _that time Harry locked us in a hotel room and claimed it was our honeymoon_. 

Louis gives him a strange look, one that Nick can't read, but he doesn't miss the way Louis' right hand comes up to rub over the curly NG tattoo on his ring finger, which Nick would have expected him to cover up by now, if not actually get removed. "It made him happy," is what Louis says before drifting away to talk to Ben. Nick's fairly sure it's the most civil conversation they've had when not doing an interview, so he goes to talk to Harry about it. 

He's still on the dance floor, still totally wrapped up in Daisy when Nick taps her on the shoulder. "Can I cut in?" 

She kisses Harry once more, and goes to hang off Nick for a change before Nick gently shoves her away and takes Harry's hand instead. "I mean this one," he says. "I'll get you later." 

He twirls Harry around a few times just for fun, and probably for Aimee's camera, she's lurking around somewhere, before he gets to the reason he needed to cut in. "Is Louis alright? He was being weird with me." 

"Weird how?" Harry asks, slowing down as his brow furrows, unable to concentrate on the problem and keep his feet moving at the same time. 

"Just, weird. He was civil to me for about a minute, which I think is a record. Has he said anything to you about the --" Nick does his handwavy thing again, and Harry knows what he's talking about, since he's the one who'd found Nick the morning after. 

Harry bites his lip. "No," he says, voice slow and doing that question thing which actually means, _yes_. For all the Nick can't read Louis, he knows Harry inside and out. 

"He hasn't gotten rid of the tattoo," Nick says, coming at it from a different angle, hoping that Harry will just _spill_ already. Clearly something's up. 

"Neither have you," Harry points out. 

"I never got rid of the crying eyeball thing either," Nick points out. "I don't have layers and layers of tattoos like you lot." 

"You still have that R you can't identify," Harry says, the corners of his lips curling into the beginnings of blinding smile. It lasts for a few seconds, long enough for Harry to shove Nick partially away and twirl him again. "Ask him why he ran away. He's more likely to give a straight answer to a direct question." Harry suggests. 

Nick leans forward to give Harry an exaggerated kiss on the lips, dipping him for effect. "Thanks," he whispers and he pulls Harry back up. "Now where's that bride of yours. I owe her a turn on the dance floor, too." 

He dances with Daisy, giggling and whispering with her, before sending her back to Harry so he can go search for Louis. But it's dinner time, then toasts (where Harry is much more soggy than Daisy), then cake and then more dancing, and Nick's promised to DJ for at least a small set where he narrowly resists playing all his favorite One Direction singles in a row. It's nearly two in the morning before he gets a chance to corner Louis on his own, as everyone is starting to drift away. 

"Grimshaw," Louis says warily, eyeing Nick as he comes closer. He's got a drink in his hand but he doesn't sound drunk; his diction is clear enough. Good. 

"Can we talk for a minute?" 

Louis looks over at Liam, who shrugs and melts back into the shrinking crowd with at quick, "catch you later, mate." 

"We should go somewhere private," Louis says, nodding towards the door to the now-empty patio. Nick follows easily, not wanting to have this conversation in public, either. 

"So," Nick says. He pauses a bit, taking in Louis' defensive stance; he's got his arms crossed over his chest, legs under his shoulders and his chin up, staring straight at Nick's face. Nick wonders not for the first time how such a small person takes up so much more room than he's allowed. Might as well go all in, Nick thinks. This is probably the only chance he's going to get to sort out his head post-Vegas wedding. "Why did you run away?" 

It seems that Louis is expecting to talk around it more, because he looks shocked before he gets his face under control again. "Harry tell you to ask that?" There's a rough edge to his voice. Nick would call it panic, but he doesn't know Louis at all, and doesn't want to reach the wrong conclusion.

"Yes. Would you please answer?"

Louis hesitates and tightens his arms around his chest. He's less defiant and more protective, now. "I didn't want to remember the morning after." 

Nick isn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it isn't _this_. He doesn't have an answer for it, so he just stares at Louis, sure his eyes are wide enough to show the whites all around. He must look absolutely mental. 

"It's nothing," Louis barrels on, "I just wasn't sure how you'd react and I -- It was nice, okay? Whatever it was, I just didn't want to deal with the aftermath, so I left." 

"I hate waking up alone," Nick says, since he's got to come up with some reaction and he's just been completely blindsided. 

"I'm sorry," Louis says. "I just, I didn't know what you'd do waking up with me after all the--" he waves his hand around, and Nick knows what he means. All the shit from twitter, the overblown attention on both of them for all the wrong reasons. The wedding and actually having sex when they could have just passed out on opposite sides of the room instead. 

Nick bites his lip. "I've never hated you, not really." He's been irrationally annoyed by Harry's tiny best friend for years, but he's realized over the last few weeks that most of it isn't about Louis himself, but about what happens every time their names get linked. He really hates people sending him death threats, even when objectively he knows they're all about fourteen and don't know what they're doing. It's a perfectly reasonable reaction. 

He takes half a step closer, crowding into Louis' personal space, and watches. He watches as Louis tightens up his arms and draws up his chest again, puffing out in a protective, defiant display. In the dim glow of the fairy lights from the gardens and the muted light from inside, he's _beautiful_. Nick's breath catches. 

"Can I?" Nick asks, bringing his left hand, the one still branded with Louis initials, his one souvenir from that whole stupid week, up to rest lightly on Louis' cheek. Louis nods, and Nick steps in even closer, chest bumping into Louis' crossed arms, fingers tilting his head back even more. 

Even with the warning it takes Louis a few seconds to respond to Nick kissing him. Louis stills under Nick's hands, rocking back a bit onto his heels, but not really moving away. Nick brings his other hand up to grip Louis' shoulder to steady himself. He's about to pull back and possibly run away, because this was obviously a _terrible_ idea if Louis is just going to turn into a slab of granite in his hands. 

But then Louis uncurls his arms and surges forward against Nick, clutching Nick's elbows and going up on his toes to meet Nick on a more level playing field. He licks into Nick's mouth, taking control, taking up all of Nick's attention. His lips are softer than Nick remembers, and he's more demanding, kissing like he approaches everything else in his life. Nick is perfectly happy to go along with it, to hunch down a bit and let his shoulders drop and hang on to Louis like he'll fall over if he lets go. 

There's shouting inside, which finally pulls them apart. They take a moment to just stay close and _breathe_ before going back inside, where they find all the women lining up so that Daisy can chuck the bouquet into the melee. 

Nick can tell when Harry sees them coming back together, because he freezes for a minute before melting into his famous, fully-dimpled smile.

~*~ 

Harry's been on his honeymoon for three days and approximately five thousand emojis and pictures of their luxurious private beach bungalow by the time he hears from Louis again. It's a text from an unknown number, but there's enough information that Nick can figure out who it's from.

 _We never finished talking. Come to mine for tea?_

Nick has plans with Emily and Collette tonight, so he sends back, _Tomorrow?_

He gets back, _Yeah, alright_ and an address about five minutes later.

The next night he spends entirely too long picking out something to wear, and an extra twenty minutes trying to fix his hair up into a telly-ready quiff. Apparently, though, it doesn't matter, because Louis is on him the second his walks in the door, fingers digging into his hair to drag him down for a kiss. 

"This isn't what I had in mind when you said _talk_ ," Nick breathes against Louis' mouth. 

"It's where we left off, isn't it?" 

Nick has no idea why he's arguing with a fit bloke, his very fit _ex-husband_ , who is currently trapping him against a door and literally kissing the breath out of him. So he stops. 

He pulls Louis's hips against his own and smiles. "Carry on, then."


End file.
